NYTimes: The White House is announcing Thursday that Steven VanRoekel, a former Microsoft executive and current managing director of the Federal Communications Commission, will succeed Vivek Kundra as the CIO for the federal government. VanRoekel says he plans to continue with the efficiency improvement efforts began by Kundra. “We’re trying to make sure that the pace of innovation in the private sector can be applied to the model that is government,” he added.

The feds spend $80 billion a year on IT, more than any individual company.